Liar On Fire
by prairie loon
Summary: All his life he's been lying for her. But how will Peeta pull off the biggest lie of all? Can he make the entire world believe him? And can he keep himself from believing it too? Series of one shots from all three books. Each chapter covers one of the many lies that have shaped Peeta's life. Peeta's POV.
1. Chapter 1: Learning to Lie

**LIAR ON FIRE**

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**CHAPTER ONE - Learning to Lie**

I remember the first time I lied. Well, I'm not sure if it was the very first time but it was the first time that really meant anything, the first time where I realized my life had a purpose. I discovered that if I turn a phrase just so or put a certain look on my face, I can make things seem slightly different than reality. People would believe this new reality that I created. And I could get what I wanted.

I was 5 years old and the day before I'd heard an angel sing. Our teacher, Mrs. Bantam, was doing what passed for a lesson in music history. It was the class' introduction to propaganda songs. As the school year progressed, we would be taught the songs of Panem. We would memorize and recite the_ "Pride of Panem,"_ a song about the savior of our nation, the first president after the rebellion. Our tremulous voices would sing "_Courage, My Love"_ and "_Justice, Mighty Justice,"_ songs that reminded district folk what an honor it was to serve in the Hunger Games. All of the songs made sure we understood that our own district did not provide for our needs, but rather the Capitol was our generous benefactor. The Capitol was to be the object of our faith, loyalty and obligation.

But it was already too late for me to become a good citizen of Panem. Already at the tender age of five, I had found the object where all my faith, loyalty and obligation would reside. She sat on the other side of the classroom and she was the most beautiful girl in the world.

Mrs. Bantam was going to teach us some folk songs she said. "They aren't strictly Capitol songs, but they are a part of our history." She pulled a chair out in front of her desk at the front of the classroom. "Now, who here knows "The Valley Song?" she asked. No one raised their hand. "Come now, someone must know it!" I saw a hand shoot up on the other side of the room. "Come on up, dear. Stand on the chair so everyone can hear you."

The girl hopped up on the chair and looked around the room, almost defiantly. She was from the Seam, a place I'd heard of, but never seen. My mom used it to scare my brothers and me when she was angry with us. "If you don't get up those stairs right now, I swear I'm going to break you over my knee and then drag you down to the Seam and leave you there where you belong!"

She was so brave. No one else stood up, but here she was, standing on a chair, dark hair pulled back in two braids hanging down her back. And when she started to sing... the whole world stood still.

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The lie came so easily.

"Mrs. Bantam?"

"Yes, Peeta?"

"Can I... erm, I mean, may I.. M-May I move to a different seat? One further away from the window?"

I saw the question arise in her eyes, but I was ready and my words all came out in a rush. "The light is pretty bright and I can't see the board very well and I was thinking that maybe if I got a little further away from the window and closer to the front that I could see better."

Mrs. Bantam pursed her lips.

Desperate, I pulled out all the stops. "A..and," I stammered, "and, um, well the kids from the Seam... Maybe there's one of them that wants to sit closer to the window so they can see their daddy when he comes home from the mines." I tilted my face toward the floor and gazed up at her through my eyelashes, "I already know where my daddy is. My daddy's at the bakery."

Mrs Bantam's mouth relaxed. This was gonna work!

"Peeta, that's very thoughtful of you. I believe I can switch you with Eric Hornerr. I'm sure he would like to be closer to the window."

I grinned, returning her smile. Not the perfect seat change, but it did get me four aisles and three rows closer to Katniss Everdeen.

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_A/N: My first fanfic. If you liked it, put a ring on it! Or review it - your choice. Working on Chapter 2 now, which is the lie to his mother about burning the bread. We'll work our way up to the really angsty lies in future chapters._

_If there is a particular lie you want to read about, put it in your review!_

_And here's a PERFECT comic to go with this story: (as usual, remove the spaces)_

_**h teetee pee: / / tinyurl kp9ofym**_


	2. Chapter 2: Burning Bread

**LIAR ON FIRE**

_A/N: Thanks for reading! This is my first fan fiction ever - be gentle. The chapters are chronological, so these first two are rather tame lies of a 5 year old and 11 year old Peeta. Future chapters include:_

_ Haymitch Abernathy, my new best friend / __The Careers. / __If it weren't for the baby. / __I'll be fine._

_Other ideas? Send them my way!_

_Oh yeah, Suzanne Collins pwns The Hunger Games. I just loaf around in here. (See what I did there?)_

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**Chapter 2 - Burning Bread.**

I just about jump out of my skin when the back door slams and my mother starts screaming. I start breathing again when I realize she isn't screaming at me.

"I swear to God if one more stinking Seam Rat comes sniffing around our garbage cans, I will bribe a Peacekeeper to shoot them through the skull!"

I try to disappear against the brick wall by the ovens, but she sees me and I forget to breathe again.

"Get out there and make sure every lid is down tight on every one of those cans!" She sees me hesitate as I gauge a path that will lead me to the backdoor without running into her clenched fist (gods, please open her hands), her face and neck turn blotchy red, and she moves toward me so fast I hardly have any room to get past (don't trip, don't trip, don't trip), but I make it out the door before she lays a finger on me.

I lean heavily against the door, facing the yard and alley, pausing a moment to feel the cold rain stinging onto my oven-warmed skin. A fluttering of paper catches my eye. Not paper. Clothes. Paper thin, covering a paper thin girl huddled at the base of a tree. I turn my head sharply to look through the window in the door to locate my mother. Luckily, she's not there. The Seam kid. That was who was digging through our trash. Guaranteed they didn't find much. The cans were just emptied this afternoon.

God, she's thin. She hasn't moved, I'm not even sure if she's seen me. But as I lean forward into the rain, squinting to make out the lines of the almost-person huddled there, she lifts her head and I see the grey flash in her eyes and I know who it is. Katniss Everdeen. My eleven-year old heart cracks in two.

I quickly check over my shoulder one more time to make sure the kitchen is empty, before I head toward the trash cans. Out of the corner of my eye I can see her head has slumped back down on her knees and tucked into her chest. She looks defeated. A flash of lightning and I can see the bumpy arch of her spine down the curve of her huddled back. The bones look sharp, as though they would slice into my fingers if I stroked them down her back to comfort her. Why is she just sitting there, I wonder.

Food. She needs food.

Bread. I have bread.

I head back into the kitchen and not even thinking, I grab one of the large wooden peels I use to pull loaves out of our biggest oven. The current batch was almost done anyway. I've shoved the paddle under the bread when I hear her return and the realization of what I am about to do hits me. My mom will kill me before she lets me give two loaves of fresh white bread away. She'll kill me twice if I give it to anyone from the Seam.

It doesn't really matter what I do. One way or another it always leads to her yelling at me and most of the time it leads to hurting me too. I used to try so hard to do just the right thing so she wouldn't be upset with me, but now I realize that it doesn't matter what I do. I'm worthless as a son and barely better as a baker. It's the main reason I've never had the guts to talk to Katniss. There's absolutely no reason she would be interested in me.

The flames flare up within the oven and the lie presents itself to me like a shining pearl. I can't just walk out with the bread now. My mother won't let me. However, since it doesn't matter what I do... I might as well do what I want, right? Either way I'm getting in trouble.

I pretend I don't hear her come in. As I pull the paddle out of the oven, I turn my wrists just enough to tip the loaves off the peel, over the rack and into the fire. I curse, something I would never do in front of her.

Straightening up as I turn, I try and relax my shoulders for what comes next. She can't know I'm expecting it. If she thinks I did this on purpose she'll probably grab the rolling pin. The back of her hand connects with my cheek as I'm turning. A sound somewhere between a whimper and a growl escapes me. She needs to know it hurt or she'll do it again. At least she doesn't have her rings on.

"What did you do pea-brain? What did you just say?" The blotchy red skin is back and I wonder if maybe she'll die like Sophie's dad, the tailor. He was angry all the time too. Maybe if I irritate her enough she'll just die. It's hard not to smile at the thought.

The tongs are next to the oven and I grab them and pull the blackened loaves out of the fire. "Get out of here!" she screams. "Go feed that pile of ash you call bread to the pigs!" I grab the loaves, ignoring the heat of the bread and the stinging on my cheek as I race out the back door.

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_A/N: Thanks for reading! I deeply appreciate those who take the time to leave comments. You make my day!_

_Picture of a baker's peel used to get bread out of the oven: oldandinteresting {dot} com {slash}images {slash} bakerspeel {dot} jpg_


	3. Chapter 3: Lying to Myself

**LIAR ON FIRE**

A/N: Thanks for reading and reviewing! You all are wonderful. As one reviewer mentioned, the chapters are pretty short. I'm guessing they'll get longer as the lies become more convoluted.

Chapter 3 was going to be about Peeta on the train and in the Capitol in the first book. However, I was struck by the thought of needing something else in between when he was 11 and when he was reaped. In this chapter, Peeta lies to others and to himself.

(SYOL - Submit Your Own Lies!) Send them my way in a review!

Oh yeah, Suzanne Collins pwns The Hunger Games. I just roll around in here. (Get it? har har. Yes, I crack myself up.)

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**Chapter 3: Lying to Myself.**

"I really like Delly Cartwright," I lied. "I'm going to ask her to go to the bonfire with me this weekend."

My brother snorted, "Yeah, right Peeta. Let's see you ask her then." He pantomimed holding his neck and choking.

My brothers constantly teased me about my fixation on Katniss Everdeen. When she came to the back door to trade for game, I always made my way into the kitchen so I could surreptitiously glance at her. I could never hide my disappointment when Gale came instead. After she left, I would sprint to the window to watch her walk away. And even though they called me "little love-sick pita bread," seeing her braid swing behind her as she walked away made it worth it.

After that night when she was a huddled wisp of a girl dying in my backyard, I began to notice her at school. We didn't have any classes together, so when I discovered where she would wait for her sister every day, I made sure I was in the same place - just in case she noticed me. I fantasized about how she would turn towards me and smile, then start walking in my direction. I would smile and reach out to take her hand. She would let me pull her to my chest as I told her how happy I was to see her again.

But what happened in real life was that I froze. All the things my mother said about how worthless I was, all the things my brothers said about how stupid I looked when I saw Katniss at the bakery and all the things I told myself about how she never noticed me and wouldn't be interested in a town boy, froze me solid. When Katniss did turn and look me in the eyes one day, I couldn't even blink. The moment passed and she turned away, looking at something on the ground. And I knew I was a coward.

I stood there for four years. And the longer I stood there, the more lies I fashioned inside my spinning mind. She wouldn't talk to me if I said hi. I would make a fool of myself. My mother would strangle me for talking with a Seam kid, let alone becoming one's boyfriend. Katniss was Gale Hawthorne's girlfriend. Katniss didn't know I was alive. Katniss did know I was alive, but despised me because I should have walked over to her and handed her that damn bread instead of throwing it at her. Katniss thought I was a stupid, stalking creeper who just stood and stared at her every day after school.

The words in my head became a daily litany of despair. Why did I keep doing this to myself? This was stupid. I was stupid. For five minutes every day, I was in hell.

Sometimes, I would tell lies to myself, my brothers or my friends about other girls. Girls I liked that weren't Katniss. Girls I was going to ask out that weren't Katniss. Like when I said I would ask Delly to the bonfire. Sometimes I even convinced myself I might really do it. However, the obvious problem with me turning any of these lies into reality was that there were no other real girls. There was only Katniss.

Sometimes, I would go a day or two after school without standing in the spot where I could see her. It got a bit easier when I had wrestling after classes. But I always found myself back there looking for her. Tomorrow I was going to go up to her and talk to her. Tomorrow, for sure...

Most nights, I laid in bed and played out an entire lifetime of blissful coexistence. I would ask Katniss to marry me under that tree where she almost died. I would hide the ring in a knotted butter roll and watch her face turn from puzzlement to joy when she pulled the roll apart. She would say yes. We would have lots of babies and would be happy forever.

They were beautiful lies. But they were still lies.

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A/N: Thanks for reading! I deeply appreciate those who take the time to leave comments. You make my day!

You may have noticed that when Peeta describes the bread incident, he doesn't think of it as "that time I gave her bread." He thinks of it as that time when "Katniss almost died of starvation right there in front of me." His action isn't the important one. Katniss' situation and need are what Peeta thinks about.


	4. Chapter 4: Part One

**LIAR ON FIRE**

_A/N: I've decided that because this chapter will be longer and seems to be taking a while to write, I would give you the intro as a teaser to tide you over another week or so._

_I want to stay close to canon, which means re-reading the original to make sure I have conversations in the right order, etc. I'm also trying to figure out the balance of having Peeta be a shaper of word and situations into the way he wants them to appear, without having him be a manipulative ass. So there you go then._

_Here's the first bit of Chapter four..._

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**Chapter 4 - Haymitch Abernathy, My New Best Friend. **

**Part One.**

"Frosting saved my life." I see the nods of approval from the gathered audience. Their hair looks sort of like frosting, too. "Luckily, all the ingredients were right there at the Cornucopia. I couldn't believe everyone else passed right by all that powdered sugar." There are more adoring nods.

Someone in the audience stands to ask a question. I can't see who it is at first but when she speaks, I know it's her.

"What about your fellow tribute, Katniss Everdeen?" Gasps and murmurs rumble through the audience. "Isn't it true that you spent the entire games disguised as a giant cupcake, while around you everyone else died?" The light turns on her and I see she is covered in blood and dirt and her neck is twisted at an odd angle. Her voice gets louder and louder until she is screaming. "You just let me DIE in there! Where were you when I needed you? Are you happy that I'm dead? Are you happy?"

I'm trying to get to her, to apologize. I want to tell her that I didn't mean for her to die. But I can't seem to open my mouth. The sea of people becomes a sea of frosting. Sickly pink and reeking of blood. I'll never reach her, but it doesn't matter. She's already dead. I've already killed her.

I wake up, still smelling and tasting the blood. I must have bitten the inside of my cheek as I slept. For a moment, I try to remember if my dream was real. Did I kill her? It couldn't be real, the games haven't even happened yet. We're still on the train to the Capitol. I make my way to the shower and just stare at the settings panel. I end up with lukewarm water and a pink foamy soap that smells a little like cotton candy.

Great. I smell like a circus.

The pink foam reminds me of my dream. A cupcake? Frosting? I'm losing it.

...

"Haymitch, there's no way I'm going to win. Katniss could do it, though. If I can't win, as least I can make my death mean something. I want to help her. I need to help her win."

Haymitch looks at me, considering my words. "You might win, you know. Stranger things have happened."

"Haymitch, I've spent years agonizing about how to say 'hi' to a girl. And you think maybe I can kill 23 people and walk out of that arena? Trust me, at least like this I'll be able to do some good."

My mentor looks skeptical. I'm terrified at the thought of dying, but I can't let Haymitch know that. I need to look like a man who has already made his decision.

"Odds be fucked," I growl. "Do you want to know what I dreamt about last night? I dreamt I disguised my self as a giant cupcake to hide from all the other tributes. A. Giant. Cupcake. **That** was my brilliant tactic."

Haymitch is speechless. He stares at a point on the ceiling for a few minutes, takes another look at me and then drains his drink in one long swallow.

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A/N: Thanks for reading! I deeply appreciate those who take the time to leave comments. The rest of the chapter will be coming along in about a week.


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